


Kissed by Death

by ShadowOfAPhoenix



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22306294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowOfAPhoenix/pseuds/ShadowOfAPhoenix
Summary: Death can touch you in more than one way.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Kissed by Death

I met him for the first time in a tunnel below his parents' house. I knew that he was destined to die at the age of 11, that a boulter would crash him only days after his parents' death. I couldn't bear the thought, though. There was something special about him. I just knew he'd be different. In the end, only seconds before it happened, I decided to save him. I moved close to him, became visible as the second of death arrived and kissed him. I gave a part of my immortality to save the child from its fate. The boy stared at me with his mouth open, the boulder didn't fall, and I disappeared into nothingness again. His fate and mine were now forever interwoven.

For more than fifteen years I didn't see him again and didn't actively follow him. Even if our fates were intertwined, it didn't mean that we would be close in any way. He was simply a human that had been kissed by Death. Then he became an MI6 agent, and a few times I was walking next to him on his missions; sometimes to take the ones that died through the circumstances that he had created, sometimes because one wrong move could have ended him. It gave me a chance to study the man he had become, and I could feel my piece of immortality in him. It was beautiful. He was handsome as well.

When he became a double-oh agent for Queen and Country, I practically became his shadow. His life was more often than not touch-and-go, and his end could have come with every single one of his missions. Many times I was so close I could have touched him, could have become visible to him, but he always got away – if only by a hair's breadth. Then his own colleague shot him, and he fell from a train which was on a bridge at that moment into the river deep down below him. He was destined to die and once again I couldn't let him. I just couldn't. For some reason it was impossible. Then and there I had an inkling of what way lay ahead of me. I didn't know it for sure, of course, but I felt that things were about to change. I was next to him before I knew it, before he could breathe his last breath, ready to take his soul with me, ready to give him death. However, I once more kissed him, once more gave him my immortality, and brought him back to the surface. His eyes opened for one small moment, then closed again.

From then on it pulled me more and more often towards him even if his end was not lurking around the corner. The bond was stronger, our connection deeper, and I was sure he could feel it. His behaviour was even more self-destructive than before, but at the same time his emotions got stronger. I felt them. It got worse with every single day that passed. Then, in the middle of Scotland, I took the life of the only woman he cared for while he lived.

Together with him I went to Mexico and he was damn lucky to fall onto that wretched sofa because otherwise I would have been forced to either take him with me or kiss him once more. Rome was much more relaxed – at least for me. Even the Alps didn't really endanger his life although any other mortal would not have survived what he did. And then he followed that woman into the desert. He felt something for her. Her closeness and calmness pushed me away from him, made our bond weaker and still I could not let go. When those long needles threatened his mind and his life, it was her who saved him, her with whom he fled and her who he saved back in London. The bond had almost dissolved by the time the mess was over and I felt its loss more strongly than I liked, more than I ever could have expected.

It was days after he ended Spectre, the day he went to get his car and drive off into the sunset, that I found out how wrong we had been. Him, his blonde woman, his boss, and even me. Despite me saving him from his immediate death, the needles had done quite some damage and there was no way to avoid or exchange it unless I gave another piece of myself. I could feel that with another piece gone, I would be so close to mortality that I could almost touch it. My invisibility would be the first to go and after that … And still, as his colleague called the ambulance and he lay there on the floor with an aneurism so very close to his mind, I accepted that my days as immortal Death were coming to an end. For one fraction of eternity I contemplated letting him go and saving myself, but that moment passed quickly. I knelt down next to him and took his hand in mine. Touch that I had avoided previously. It made things too real. His gazed at our joined hands before he slowly raised his eyes to meet mine. I knew he could see me. He had always been able to see me in the moment prior to his death. His lips formed words without making a sound. I shook my head and bent down. Slowly, carefully I touched his lips with mine and felt the spark that had been there from the beginning. Another piece of immortality lost, the pain sharper this time. A part of my immortality lost forever. I didn't mind, though. When I pulled back, he looked younger, more at ease than before. He raised his hand, touched my face. I let him. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity even to me, but took only as long as the blink of an eye, I got up from the floor and walked away. I didn't look back. I knew he was safe until the next time.

I had lost my invisibility. My ability to appear and disappear unseen was gone. If someone came upon me now … I was forced to be a face in the crowed. Staying unnoticed was harder than I could have imagined, especially when one was looking different from the ordinary woman. Even without doing much, I looked special, had a special aura, and people noticed me wherever I appeared. I knew that the end of my immortality was near. The next kiss would make me one of them, would rob me of what I had been for so long. Maybe it was the fate of Death to one day become mortal again and experience what it had given to others. Was that punishment or salvation?

Much to my surprise days and weeks passed by without being drawn to him. Months. Then a year and a second one. Maybe he had finally found happiness, a life without danger. I doubted it. It didn't fit. It wasn't like him. He wasn't someone to sit back and let others do his work. He wasn't someone who lived with a wife and kids in a house with a white fence in some town. It wasn't like him. My dawning mortality brought so many strange emotions with it. Emotions that had always been there but hidden under a layer of indifference now emerged and made me feel lost. I missed him. Felt a longing that I had never known. I wanted to go to him but at the same time felt unable to do so. I felt torn, restless, helpless.

The pull came so sudden that I thought it would rip out my heart. I was drawn to Scotland. The ruins of what had once been his house. At first I didn't see him. It was getting dark. It was cold. Rain almost turned to snow was falling. I moved closer to the ruins and then I saw him. He knelt there on the ground a gun in hand. It wasn't like him. He wouldn't do that, would he? He was not the kind of man who committed suicide. Still it had drawn me to him and that meant that if I didn't stop it, stop him … The last kiss. One more kiss. No. Not like this. Just … He couldn't mean it. He raised the gun. Maybe he would … Raised it to his temple. If he really pulled the trigger … I was kneeling down in front of him before I realised what I was doing. I leaned close and my lips gently touched his. This time the spark of electricity was so strong that I felt as if someone had switched a light on. As if thousands of ants were crawling over my body. As if I was drenched with ice water. I drew in a shuddered breath, felt the rapid beating of my heart, the blood pumping to my veins, the end of immortality, and the beginning of the end. Death would find me now. Death would come for me when the time was right. The kiss ended and I couldn't flee. I was no longer able to disappear, and we were in the middle of nowhere. Without him I would see Death sooner than expected.

"I know you."

I didn't know what to say. I had never spoken to any of my ... jobs.

"Why couldn't I find you? Why did I only see you if I was close to dying?"  
"Do you really need to ask? You know the answer already."  
"You've never talked to me before."  
"I couldn't."  
"And now you can?"  
"I'm no longer what I used to be."

He frowned.

"Why?"  
"Isn't it obvious? I gave my immortality in exchange for your life. I gave all I had to save you."

Silence. All of sudden I felt incredibly cold and exhausted. I was only human after all. I shivered and he noticed. James Bond put his gun away and rose to his feet.

"Let's go somewhere warm."


End file.
